


Building Our Home

by princessbekker



Series: Finding Our Home [2]
Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: Death, M/M, PTSD, Past Abuse, Sequel, Super power AU, Violence, tags updated as needed
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-28
Updated: 2019-05-28
Packaged: 2020-03-26 11:20:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19004734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/princessbekker/pseuds/princessbekker
Summary: Mike and Peter track down others like them, as well as having to deal with the trauma of what they've been through at the hands of their fathers.





	Building Our Home

After the rest stop, Peter and Mike do not speak the entire drive, despite it being nearly a day and a half. What is there to say? They’ve been through hell, and Peter is a different man, and he can probably hear everything Mike is thinking anyway. There’s no point in trying to voice how hurt he is at being abandoned by Peter when they had the chance to reunite. For the couple weeks they were staying in some small house, Ellie took good care of him and helped him heal from his injuries, while Peter barely spoke to him.

And now, because they haven’t talked, Peter probably thinks Mike’s afraid of him when he’s really just afraid of himself. He didn’t know he could hurt people, not like that. Every time Peter touches his bare skin, Mike’s terrified of filling him with pain. He’s so tired of hurting people. He doesn’t want to do it anymore, and given how he always says Mike is easy to read, that his mind is like an overflowing sink, there’s no telling the kind of damage he could cause.

So they do not touch. Not even when they reach the small town in the midwest, and Peter parks the robin egg blue pickup along the road so they can walk into the grocery on mainstreet, right next to the local newspaper office. Both are so small, remind Mike of play sets he always wanted from the store but his father dragged him away from. It is a chain grocery though, Mike can tell that much. When he was really little, his mom took him on a road trip cross country, and there were a few Hy-Vees when they passed through Iowa. He remembers eating breakfast there with her on a thick aired morning.

He misses her.

When they walk inside, and Peter picks up a couple sodas to give him an excuse to talk to the cashier, Mike tries not to look at the logo because it hurts too much. He keeps his head down and his hands in his pockets, listening in but wishing he could curl up somewhere dark and never leave.  

“I haven’t seen you boys before, are you new?”

“No, sir, we’re from the next town over,” Peter tells the cashier cheerfully. “We’re writing an article on that kid, Sonny, with the green thumb, for our school newspaper. Know where we could find him?”

Mike expects the cashier to at least be hesitant, but when he looks up the cashier has a dazed look on his face. His voice is robotic when he gives directions. Down the street, make a left, then a right, follow the road all the way to the Carisi household.

Sonny Carisi. They have a full name now, at least. 

“Real strange kid,” the cashier adds, voice back to normal. “He’s nice and all, very sweet. But he’s odd. Keeps to himself, doesn’t have a cell phone. Does all the errands himself, you know. His parents and sisters, they stay around the house.”

“Thank you very much, sir, you have a good day.” 

The cashier waves at them as they leave, unaware of the fact that Peter didn’t pay for either of the pop cans they leave with. One of them is placed in Mike’s hands, but he’s too sick to his stomach to drink it. Peter just used his powers for no reason other than he wanted to. Because it was just easier than paying five dollars they definitely have. Christ.                               

Peter opens the truck door for him and closes it after him, then gets into the driver’s seat to follow the directions to the Carisi household. He must decide the silence is over, because he clears his throat and starts talking.

“I know that the whole- the place we were, it wasn’t pleasant. It helps to talk about it, you know.”

“Is that why you haven’t spoken to me since?”

“I’ve tried, you don’t remember?”

Mike’s head starts to hurt a little, his thoughts going soft at the edges. An image of sitting on the couch while Peter sits in front of him, trying to get his attention, floats at the forefront of his mind. But it’s wrong, because there was no place in front of the couch to sit at Ellie’s house. There was a coffee table covered in flower pots, not a chair. As soon as he thinks that, the image shifts, and Mike realizes exactly what’s going on.

“Get the fuck out of my head.”

It all disappears just like that. The faint ache, the fuzziness, the picture. In the blink of an eye, it’s like it never happened. But Mike knows it did, knows that Peter just tried to manipulate him. Peter, his best friend since childhood. Peter, who always protects him. Peter, who’s saved his life multiple times since they ran away. Peter, who promised to never do that to him. 

Mike sinks down in his seat and leans his head against the cool window, staring out at the world as the cracking asphalt turns to dirt roads kicking up fine dust around them. He knows he should drink the soda, keep his blood sugars up, but the thought of doing so makes him want to scream because of Peter. He doesn’t want anything from him. If he could, Mike would run off, but he knows he wouldn’t survive it. At least for now, he needs Peter with him. He’s just as trapped as he was in that cell,

The house they pull up in front of is old, dilapidated. Ivy and moss climb up the walls, weave through the windows that don’t look to have had glass in them for a very long time. And sitting on the porch is a teenager. Blond. Skinny. Surrounded by luscious greenery, a circle of flowers surrounding him. He looks up when Peter parks the car, but doesn’t come any closer.

Although he definitely doesn’t like to take the initiative in any sort of social situations, certainly not one as important as this, Mike gets out of the car first because he doesn’t know what Peter might do to the teenager, if he thought it was acceptable to manipulate Mike of all people.

“You must be Sonny, right?”

The plants around him seem to grow and move forward, protectively arching around him and displaying sharp thorns like stingers. “Stop sending people after me. I’ve gotten rid of every single one, when will you realize-”

“Hey, hey, no one sent us,” Mike says calmly, putting his hands up in surrender and stepping forward. “We’re like you, we have powers. We don’t wanna hurt you.”

Sonny studies him carefully, and then Peter. He gets a strange look on his face, just like the cashier, and a burst of frustration runs through Mike before something soothes it, so gentle, so careful. There was a time he would be comforted. But now he just focuses on his anger to watch Peter wince where he stands. Serves him right.

“Why don’t we talk inside,” Peter starts.

Immediately, Sonny’s eyes go wide and he pushes himself back, the plants going back to attack mode. They reach for Peter, all thorns and sharp branches and what Mike thinks may be poison ivy. 

“No. We stay out here, understand me?”

“Yes, okay.”

Sonny turns his attention back to Mike, having apparently decided he likes him better, trusts him more, or both. The plants start to ease back, and a spot opens up beside him for Mike to sit too. It seems they’re going to start talking.

**Author's Note:**

> tumblr is also @beelivia


End file.
